Sermon August 8, 1999 Inseparable Love based on Romans 8:35-38
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Text: "NIV Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
J. R. Miller compares the depths of God's love to the ocean when he says, "When one who has never sailed out upon the ocean stands on its shore and watches the trembling waves as they surge and break upon the sands, how little does he know of the majesty and grandeur of the great deep, of its storms, of its power, of its secrets, of its unfathomable chambers, of its unweighed treasures? He sees only the little silver edge that breaks at his feet. So we stand but where the Spirit of God breaks upon the shore of our world. We see its silver edge. We feel the splash of its waves upon our hearts. But of its infinite reaches and outgoings beyond our shores we know almost nothing. Yet blessed are they who even stand by the shore and lave their hearts in even the shallowest eddies of this divine ocean."
Romans is a wonderful book which Martin Luther called the purest gospel. Our text today is a wonderful one which speaks about a powerful love. It is a love that cannot be separated. It is a love that makes us more than conquers. Now this love is a love of Christ.
You know, there are two ways to take that phrase, "love of Christ." It could be love coming from Christ towards us, or it could be our love going toward Christ. Now, if we are speaking about the love we show to Christ, would you say that that love is a powerful love? Is it a love that cannot be separated? Jesus said: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Is that the type of love we give? We know that our love is very weak instead of powerful. So, we know this passage speaks about the love that Christ shows to us. It is a powerful love, even though our love is weak.
Because our love of Christ is weak, we may doubt the strength of His love of us from time to time. Many people wonder if God does really love them. Is there something which can keep that love from reaching us? Is there something which can separate us from that love? That is the question with which our text opens up. The second verse then gives an example of doubting God's love. It quotes Psalm 44:22. "As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.'"
This Psalm 44 is an interesting one. It begins in the first 8 verses with a wonderful witness to God's power. "...It was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them...I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but you give us victory over our enemies..." Then the Psalm turns to a complaint against God. The Psalm writer is facing persecution and he blames God for the persecution. He is facing trials and physical threats. Then we come upon verse 22, quoted in our Romans text, which says "For your sake we face death all day long." In other words, "On account of You, Lord, we face death." The blame lands squarely on the Lord. This human writer of the Psalm expresses the feelings he encounters when put in a situation of persecution. He faces a time of doubting God's love.
Ask yourself, are you put in situations where you might doubt God's love? Do you find yourself ready to complain? Are you failing to trust and to see the Lord at work in your life?
The situations that might cause us to doubt God's love include: the death of a loved one, a major illness, the loss of a job, trouble with marriage or a child. The list could go on. What other situations can you think of? What kind of trouble can you anticipate in this life? I encourage you to think about these situations ahead of time. Ponder what your reaction might be. Would you abandon your faith over such an event? Would you walk away from the Lord in that situation, because you felt that He had abandoned you?
The secular world likes to point to our afflictions as proof that Christ has ceased to love us, or that we have only imagined His love. The world tries to teach us that we can put our own conditions on God's love, so that we might say that if God doesn't do things a certain way, then that means He doesn't really love me. You often hear such statements as: "If God is a loving God, why did such and such happen?" These statements are people trying to tell God how to do His job. They are trying to box-in God's love, so that they say, "if God doesn't show love in the way that I say, then He must not love me."
The fruits of this type of thinking came upon Jesus Himself. Remember how Christ on the cross was mocked? Mat 27:41-43 says, "Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, 'He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, "I am the Son of God."'" These mockers pointed to Christ continuing to die upon the cross as a sign that God did not love Him. How wrong they were, for Christ remained on the cross as a sign that God does indeed love us.
We need to come up with a different definition of God's love. We need one that is no so narrow as to suggest that the only true love from God is that which makes me happy. We need to see the broader perspective, from God's view, where the ultimate sign of love does not have to do with this life, but with the life to come. This perspective lets us see suffering of this life in a different perspective. We might even be able to understand how we could be afflicted just because we are God's true children. It is not a sign that God has withdrawn His love, but rather the opposite, which is that we are to suffer for His sake.
Seeing suffering this way, we are taught by Scripture to endure suffering joyfully. NKJ Romans 5:3-5 "And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Also NKJ Acts 5:41 "So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name."
After Psalm 44:22 is quoted in our text, it goes on immediately to comment on that which was quoted. That verse from the Psalm was blaming the Lord for suffering. On Your account, Lord, we are facing death all day long, it says. The text shows us that this idea of blaming God for suffering is wrong. "No," it starts out. It is not this way, in other words. It says, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Rather than looking at the suffering and persecution and trials, look instead to the victory and conquering. This verse gives the answer of faith and Christian hope. In spite of current circumstances, in spite of what I see in this life, faith knows that love is there and salvation is secure. What a change this is from the previous verse. There the Psalm is quoted and we think we are being killed and we are facing suffering and feeling overwhelmed and sinking. Then we are turned around to see that we have won already. We are completely victorious. The battle has already been won and the victory is ours. We are more than conquers. Notice carefully how this victory comes, however. It is through "Him who loved us."
Now, coming back to the opening question: Will anything ever make Christ cease to love us? The answer is, of course, No! None of the things listed at the beginning or end of our text can serve as obstacles to keep the love of Christ from us. None of these can stop God's love from reaching us and holding us.
It is worth going back over those lists. Trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword: not one of these can keep the Love of Christ from us. It is suggested that this was a list of all the things that the Apostle Paul, the writer of this letter to the Romans, had encountered himself. The second list is even broader: death, life, angels demons, the present, the future, any powers, height, depth, or anything else in all creation. None of these can block off Christ's love. The point of all this is that God's love is a powerful love. It is a love that breaks through all obstacles and penetrates all barriers.
This powerful love of Christ is linked to us. What can we point to in order to know this? Certainly we have God's Word that we can point to, right here in our text, for example, that tells us how God loves us powerfully. The place we ultimately want to point to is the cross. We are linked to God's love through the cross. There the love was expressed for all people. There was the one supreme act of love demonstrated to us through Jesus Christ. We point to the cross to see God's love at work for us, connected to us. At the cross, Christ sacrificed His life to give us eternal life. He suffered and died so that guilt would be removed. He was punished for our sins.
The cross is where we point to see Christ's love. It is by faith that we receive the benefits of the cross. Faith is the channel through which the love comes to each of us personally. It is by faith you can know that what Christ did on the cross was for you. You can know that God has not forgotten you. We can each know He is remembering us because in the past He sent Jesus as evidence of this. Whenever we might think that God is forgetting us, we only need to ask if Jesus still died on the cross for us. Whenever we doubt, we simply point ourselves back to the cross. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross demonstrates God's love for us for all times.
To experience suffering in this life does not mean that God no longer loves us. Instead, we can know for certain that nothing can separate us from the Love of Christ. This love was supremely demonstrated at the cross. There we see how we are completely victorious through Him who loves us, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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